The Hearing
by tailkinker.au
Summary: An AU story set in the Collar!Redux universe created by oflymondddreams. In that universe House is a slave, while also working at PPTH. This story takes place while House and Stacy are still together. House has to attend a disciplinary hearing.
1. Chapter 1

**This is set in the CollarRedux universe created by oflymondddreams though it is AU to their stories. If you aren't familiar with the CollarRedux stories you should stop and go and read them first, and if you enjoy them please review the author to encourage them to keep writing :) As always my thanks to Oflymondreams for allowing me to play in the intriguing universe they created :)  
**

**This was sparked from a line in CollarRedux Season 2, chapter 2.08 The Mistake , where Stacy remembers that Greg had attended disciplinary hearings while he was still tagged by her. This is one possible version of how such a hearing might have gone.  
**

* * *

They call it a peer review but these men are not his peers. They are doctors, as Greg is, but they are free.

Greg stands before them, clad only in jeans, t-shirt and his collar. Stacy had borrowed a suit and tried to get him to wear it for this occasion. He had rejected it. He had touched the collar on his throat and told her that nothing could change the fact that he was a slave. If he appeared in a suit it would only give them one more thing to complain about, a slave trying to pass himself as a free man, trying to pretend he was one of them.

The doctors that make up the committee stare at him now, clad in their sober suits and ties. They resent the fact that a slave is a head of department in this hospital. They resent the fact that he is a better doctor than they can ever be. Greg knows they will never pass up this opportunity to put him in his place.

Stacy stands beside him, and he is aware of her silver tag dangling from his collar. She is here both as the hospital's chief attorney and as his 'owner'. It is her right to be here, to hear the outcome. This is his first hearing since she tagged him. He can feel that she is nervous, worried. They have discussed the possible consequences of this hearing and how she should react to it, she disagreed with him and they argued long into the night. In the end she agreed, he hopes that she can stick to that agreement.

He listens to their words, his heart pounding. He never thinks of consequences when he is treating patients, he thinks only of solving the puzzle and he does everything he can to diagnose the patient, no matter how reckless. What seemed like a good idea at the time now seems unbelievably foolish. He dreads the coming pain.

"...although the patient did, in fact, survive your actions were completely reckless and irresponsible. Therefore this committee recommends that you be subject to the appropriate judicial punishment."

He tunes back into their words. They won't impose the actual punishment, it is Dr Cuddy's place to do that. She is sitting at one end of the table, immaculate and composed. She glances at some papers before her and then looks to the guards stationed discreetly by the door. She doesn't look at Greg.

"Take Greg down to the basement. Fifty lashes."

They move in next to him, taking hold of both of his arms, spinning him around and cuffing his hands behind his back. He looks up to see Stacy staring at him, her eyes wide, words of protest on her lips. He shakes his head slightly, trying to remind her of their agreement. There is no use her arguing, and it can only weaken her position here at the hospital. She is already subject to enough gossip from her colleagues for her perceived kindness to a slave. Greg doesn't want her to do anything that will endanger her position here, or threaten her tagging of him. His life here is almost bearable now, and he doesn't want anything to change that.

"Do you want to witness the punishment? It is your right of course." Cuddy was asking Stacy. They have discussed this as well. He doesn't want her to see this. It is a brutal reality of being a slave but it is nothing he wants her to experience. What he has with Stacy is precious to him and he doesn't want it tainted by this. Bad enough that she will see the scars. He stares at her, trying to reassure her with his gaze that he will be okay, that he will survive this.

"No." Deliberately she comes towards Greg, reaching out and stroking his face, ignoring the disapproving stares of the other doctors. "You did the right thing Greg. You saved that woman's life."

He can't touch her back, his hands are tightly cuffed behind his back, but he takes a brief moment of comfort from her touch and nods. Their eyes meet and he mouths the words 'I love you' to her.

Then he is moved out the door, and down to the hospital's basement to be whipped.

* * *

She is there when he returns. He'd spent two days on the slave ward. Restrained face down on a bed while the lash marks scabbed over and began to heal. He'd dreaded her appearing there, to see him like that, but she had stayed away. This morning he had been released, and sent back to work. He feels the marks still burning across his back, barely hidden by his t-shirt. She is sitting in his office chair.

"Greg, I'm so sorry."

"Not your fault. My decision." He says shortly. He doesn't want to discuss this with her, not now, not ever. He's in pain and he will be for some time and he wants to forget it as much as possible.

She caresses his face again and this time he leans into it, wanting the comfort she offers.

"You'll come home with me tonight. I've already cleared it with Cuddy. We have the weekend."

He is surprised, he thought he'd be on double duty and restricted to the hospital for a while, maybe Cuddy didn't completely agree with the judgement of the Committee although she'd had no choice but to enforce it.

She takes him home, cooks him his first meal in two days and sits curled up next to him on the couch. When he is as relaxed as he ever gets she goes to remove his t-shirt. He stills her hand with one of his own.

"No."

"I want to see, Greg. I want to know what they did to you."

"You know what they did, you don't need to see it. I don't want you to see it. Please, leave it."

She nods and drops the t-shirt hem. She leans in and kisses his cheek.

"I love you too," she whispers in his ear.

* * *

That night he stands in her bathroom, alone. He strips the t-shirt over his head and glances at his back in the mirror. Welts criss-cross his skin, droplets of blood along their length. He turn around and stares at himself, black collar encircling his neck, Stacy's silver tag hanging down at his throat. His eyes stare back at him, hollow and pained. He looks back into the bedroom where Stacy is lying in the bed, reading, at ease, comfortable.

He wonders how there can ever be a future for them.

For he is a slave and she is free.


	2. Chapter 2

_Just adding another chapter to this one, the same events as the first chapter but told from Stacy's Point of View._

* * *

The only thing she can think as she stands beside him is that she wishes Greg had worn the suit. Maybe if he didn't look like a slave they wouldn't treat him like one. Suspension, professional sanctions, a slap on the wrist. Punishments for free men. She knew what the punishment for a slave would be. It was silly really, suit or not, there would always be the collar around his neck, the tag that dangled down from it. She hated that tag. Hated that she'd had to tag him as if he were an animal so that she could be with him. The tag gave him some freedom but it also enslaved him to her.

She knows he's nervous. He's been whipped before, mostly the standard ten strokes. She's seen the thin lines across his back, the marks of it. He hasn't been whipped since she's been with him. She'd been furious with him for what he'd done, for the risk he had taken for his patient. He'd looked at her in that blank, infuriating way and shrugged. He did what he had to do, in his eyes there was no choice. The patient had lived, the case had been solved. Her anger had faded and she had gone to him and held him tightly.

She thought she'd been prepared to hear the sentence but when Cuddy pronounced 'fifty lashes' her anger flared again. How could she sit there so calm and reserved and sentence a man to so much pain?

Cuddy invites her to witness the whipping. She wants desperately to be there, to support Greg, to show him just how much she loves him. She knows he doesn't want her there and truthfully it is not something she wants to see. She feels like a coward when she says no.

The two massive security guards have spun him around roughly, fastened his hands behind his back. He stands quietly between them, head down, staring at the ground.

She goes to him, touches his face, lifting it so his eyes meet hers. She can feel the committee members staring at her but she ignores them. She tells Greg he did the right thing. He can't touch her, with his arms pinioned behind him, but she sees gratitude in his eyes and knows she has given a brief moment of comfort. He mouths the words 'I love you' to her, for her eyes only and she wants to say it back but it is too late and he is gone, hustled out the door.

Two days he is gone. She knows where he is, knows he will be fastened down to a bed in the slave ward in the basement, naked, alone, hurting. Once she even presses the elevator button for the basement floor but when the doors open she stays inside, letting the elevator take her back to the first floor, where she belongs, where the free people are. Once again his wishes keep her away. He tries to keep this side of his life from her and she has always allowed him to do so.

She waits for him in his office chair. When he enters he is moving slowly, each step pained. His face is drawn and haggard, his clothes seem to sag on him. She stares at his t-shirt and knows what it conceals.

She goes to him, doesn't hug him because that will cause pain but strokes his face, gently kisses him. She's cleared the weekend with Cuddy, managed to gain Greg's release from his duties. She suspects that Cuddy might be feeling some sympathy for Greg, maybe some guilt. She can never be sure with Cuddy, sometimes she seems to treat Greg as nothing more than a walking, talking piece of hospital equipment, sometimes there is a glimmer of compassion for the brilliant enslaved doctor.

She takes him home, cooks for him, cares for him. He eats as if he is starved, sitting perched on the edge of a chair, never allowing his back to rest against a hard surface.

When they are watching television afterwards she tries to remove his shirt. She just wants to see, to try and bring some comfort to him. He stops her, again keeping this part of himself private and she surrenders.

She tells him that she loves him, it's all she can do for his pain.

At night she lies in bed and pretends to read while he gets cleaned up in the bathroom. An old married couple, owner and slave. Tears form in her eyes. She loves him but she doesn't know if it will be ever be enough, for either of them.


End file.
